


Please Don't Go

by mooosicaldreamz



Series: Love Story [5]
Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-03
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 04:06:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1212079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mooosicaldreamz/pseuds/mooosicaldreamz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quinn's life is changing once again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Quinn gets the call in the middle of an appointment.  She's just finishing up telling a kid that his shots won't turn his skin green or anything, and that they're nothing to be afraid of, and then her secretary is barging into the room, frantic, with Quinn's usually locked-up cell phone grasped in her hand.

Quinn has never felt more afraid in her entire life as when she looks over at the kid quickly, this kid who's been crying for the last five minutes over getting his tetanus shot and the phone that clearly displays  a call from NYU Medical Center's Emergency Room, because her secretary looks pleading and wild-eyed, and she doesn't ever get a call from the hospital unless it's one of her patients who's in intensive care.

Her heart wrenches in her chest and twists around, and she apologizes quickly to the mother of the child and takes the phone, telling the other doctor at her practice to get the kid to take his damn shots and then she says, "Hello," into the phone, like her entire life isn't waiting on the other side.

"Dr. Fabray?  It's Kevin, down at the NYU ER - I guess you already knew that.  But your wife - "

And that is all Quinn needs to know to throw her lab coat off her and at her desk chair, grabbing her purse and laptop case and rushing out of the building, trying to ignore the pounding in her head.

She takes the subway - that's how she gets to work every day, and the bus would take too long - but it feels like forever, transferring from the red line to the yellow to the green and sprinting out of the station at 33rd street.  She grabs the first college kid she sees and flashes her badge - she's a consulting physician at the hospital and gets perks like an office she never uses - and makes them have a walk and talk about how Quinn Fabray is in the building and how she needs to see Rachel's current ER physician the minute he finds the time to pull his head out of his ass and realize that _Quinn fucking Fabray_ is here.  She drops the poor attending after she pushes through the ER doors with a flourish, dropping her laptop case at the nurse's station and following a wordless nurse's pointing to room thirteen.

The sight she is greeted with upon entry is not promising.  Rachel is hooked up to an IV and what looks like the beginnings of a morphine drip, and her face is scraped all along the right side.  It's terrifying, and Quinn can't even feel her hands as she steps up to the hospital bed and drapes her fingers over the edge.  

She doesn't even quite know what happened, Kevin had just told her that Rachel was here, and unconscious, and that it looked _bad_ and that absolutely terrified her.  It should, actually, because Rachel had been her girlfriend since the tail end of their sophomore year and they had been married for ten years and the only time Rachel's ever been in the ER was last year when Alex had been born, and even then, it had literally been for the five seconds it took for Quinn to say that her wife was in labor and that they needed to get to the OB unit in the fastest transfer the entire hospital had ever undertaken.

Rachel was also knocked the hell out, and judging by the lack of people in the room besides Quinn, no one was going to be able to tell Quinn what had really happened until the attending physician got into the room.

She watches as her wife shifts just a tiny bit in her sleep, before she makes a small sound, her hand twitching too little for it to be just sleep.  Quinn can't even breathe.  She grabs at the charts at the end of the bed, and the information greeting her is not comforting, still.  It had been a fall from a set, up higher than Rachel probably should've been or would've been if Quinn had anything to do with it.  She had hit the ground and had been out like a light ever since.  It was already written in that she had a concussion, although a blind person could've probably determined that.  

"Ah, Dr. Fabray, I heard you were here."

Quinn doesn't drop the charts, just clenches them in her hands and looks up to the familiar visage of the director of the entire unit, Dr. Jansen.  She doesn't bother to shake his hand, just nods and looks back down to the chart and the familiar numbers and names and information that Quinn's learned over the years, down to the pistachios that Rachel is allergic to.  This cannot be happening. 

Dr. Jansen steps a little closer to her, not encroaching on her space, just surveys her.  

"Maybe you should put the charts down, Quinn," he says softly, because Quinn is flipping from the preliminary chart to the information page and she knows what's happening and it _kills._

She doesn't hand the clipboard over, just clenches it tighter in her already too-pale hands, leaning forward a little and bracing herself on the end of the bed, staring down the linen sheets to her wife, who should _really_ be at home and preparing to get Haley.  And _God,_ Quinn needs to call Haley, who's sixteen and is probably flipping out that Rachel isn't home right now, because sixteen year olds know how to flip the fuck out on a grand scale.

"When is she getting moved?" Quinn asks, dropping the chart into its holder and moving over to the side of the bed not accompanied by the two drips and sliding her fingers over Rachel's hand.  It doesn't move, doesn't react, and Quinn just _knows._

Dr. Jansen watches her for a moment longer, and frowns.  

"Whenever her attending deems her stable.  I'm sorry this has happened, Quinn - " 

"I don't really want to hear this speech from the other end, Dr. Jansen.  I need to...call my daughter so she can go pick up her brother at daycare," Quinn whispers, running her fingers over Rachel's hand and hoping against hope that she's _wrong_ and that this isn't happening.

Dr. Jansen leaves as quickly as he came.

-

Quinn hates the ICU.  She doesn't go up there often - it's like death is just stalking the corridors and she can't deal that well with it.  It hurts way worse, of course, when she's having to take one of her kids down to the children's ICU, but she doesn't usually have to.

Rachel's room is small and it's clean and it's a good room - Quinn knows it's the biggest one on the unit because she knows this hospital like the back of her hand, and she knows it's no mistake that her wife is the one occupying the room.  She isn't hooked up to ventilator, thank the lord, because Quinn probably couldn't be able to stand it if her usually vibrant and verbose wife was being _forced_ to breathe by a machine.  Dr. Allen, down in ER had already handed Rachel off, after she was completely unresponsive to all stimuli.  

The worst part about this whole mess was that Rachel didn't have much else going on.  Facial lacerations and some stitches along her hairline, and a broken wrist, and a possible hematoma on her leg.  Nothing else.  Just...this.

Quinn can't even breathe, so she just sits down in the chair in the far corner of the room and watches her wife breathe in and out, in and out.  That's better than she can do.

- 

Haley doesn't get into the building until around seven at night, and Quinn hears her coming from halfway across the unit.  Her daughter is too much like her mothers - both of them - and has inherited Rachel's penchant for being excitable and being loud about it, and Quinn's ability to make others fear her with simple looks and barely veiled threats.

Haley stops in the doorway of the room, panting a little, her fingers clutching her lanyard tightly.  She looks from Rachel on the bed, breathing slowly and not moving to Quinn in the chair, legs crossed up under her and eyes glued to her daughter.  Quinn can't quite tell what's going on in her daughter's head, because her jaw is clenching and unclenching, but she has enough presence of mind to step back outside the room and get antibacterial foam from the dispenser right outside before she steps back in and looks back down at Rachel.

"What happened?" she finally asks, looking over at Quinn.  For the first time, Quinn can see the shiny quality of her hazel eyes, too bright for it to be normal.  Quinn doesn't say anything, just slides out of her chair and stands up, moving over to her wife's bedside, beckoning their daughter closer.  

"She fell off a set," Quinn mutters, reaching for Rachel's hand and frowning sadly when she sees the morphine and IV drips up at the bend of  her elbow.  "She hasn't woken up since."

Haley steps a little closer to Quinn, and Quinn wraps her arm around the girl, reeling her in.  She watches as Rachel's heart rate monitor continues on and she feels Haley drop her head under Quinn's chin, unintentionally mimicking Rachel's usual positioning.  

"She's in a coma," Haley whispers, her smaller hand sliding down to worm under Quinn's and over Rachel's.  Quinn doesn't have the heart to say yes, so she just nods a little.  Haley sinks in her embrace a little more.  

-

She doesn't go home the first night.  The hour-long shift change is brutal, and after she sends Haley to the _other_ Haley's house, she commandeers a couch in the ICU waiting room and tries to ignore all the other sad-looking people in the room.  She doesn't sleep, either, just stares into the darkness until they let her back in.

She spends the rest of the night at Rachel's bedside, watching nurses come in and out and checking machines and Rachel's charts every forty-five minutes, right on schedule.  She knows, intellectually, that she is probably in the way, and that she's torturing herself by sitting here and expecting something extraordinary to happen.  She went to medical school, she's seen people in comas before, she _knows_ what the rates are and what all this could mean for her, for her life.

Quinn doesn't quite know what her life would be without Rachel.  She's known the woman her entire life, she's been with her for a little over half of it, and she doesn't know what her life even looks like with Rachel in it.  She's her wife, her partner, her best friend.  And she was in a coma, and Quinn remembers all the stuff she absorbed in her neurology class downtown, and she remembers the facts and the numbers and she knows that this could go sideways eighteen ways to Sunday.  

Michael and Aaron get there on the second day Rachel is in the hospital, and they drag her out to lunch.  Or, they drag  her down to the hospital cafeteria where she blearily scans her badge for all three of their meals, and stares at her already slim meal with contempt.  Michael watches her watch her food, before he gently pokes at her shoulder.

"Quinnie, honey," he says, sounding too sad for it to really be Michael.  Michael was supposed to be the dad who took her to an adult toy store the day she got accepted to NYU on pre-med, not the sympathetic, sad one.  Quinn swallows and looks up to him, her eyes sliding over his wrinkled face.  He's only just turned 54, and he looks great for his age, but the wrinkles are clear to Quinn.  She's known him since she was five, lived with him for two years before she moved for the big city with his daughter and her own daughter.  "Let's eat."

"I'm not really hungry," she says, sighing, looking down at her salad and knowing intellectually that she is hungry.  The disconnect from her head to her stomach is too far for her to manage.  "Let's...go home."

-

Alex squeals happily when he sees her, his little arms stretching out towards Quinn from the safety of Haley (the elder's) arms.  Haley doesn't look too frazzled with having had to take care of a eighteen-month-old and a sixteen year-old, and just smiles at Quinn easily, holding the little boy out to his mother.  Quinn takes him, smiles a little when he immediately grabs for her hair, like he always does, his little fingers winding through it and tugging lightly, and kisses his small forehead before setting him on her hip.  It had been an easy decision to have another child, and Alex was a rather well-adjusted child, making the decision even easier, in hindsight.  But considering the fact that her wife was in a coma, unresponsive to the city that never sleeps buzzing around her...

Aaron smiles down at Alex, poking him in the nose and running his hand over the dark brown hair that's been present on his head since his birth, thanks to his genetic ancestry in Rachel and Puck (who had quite lecherously and happily agreed to be the sperm donor, saying something about fathering both of Quinn's kids, and how the first one had been much more fun to make).  Haley (the younger) came bouncing out of her room and made a lunge for Michael, squealing happily at their appearance.  Michael and Aaron lived north of the city, and came down pretty often, but Haley acted just like her mother when something mundane made her happy.  

Haley (the elder) steps closer to Quinn and hugs her loosely, and Quinn sets her head on her cousin's shoulder thankfully.  She feels like she could sleep for days, but she's a little afraid to close her eyes.  Haley seems to catch that thought and steps back, taking Alex back from Quinn and gesturing for Quinn to go to bed.  No one says a word against it, and Haley (the younger) hugs Quinn tightly before whispering, "Just go to sleep, mom," and Quinn goes to her bedroom after whispered assurances from Haley, other Haley, and her fathers-in-law that they'll go out to dinner and it'll be fine if Quinn goes to sleep for a little bit.  Alex makes a noise of contentment when Quinn kisses the top of his head and slowly steps into her bedroom.

Her entire life lays around the room, reflecting back at her everything she has to lose.  Comas are complicated things, Quinn knows.  Chances are 50/50, and no matter how high the fall, there's no true way to figure which side of the coin you're getting.  Quinn knows all these things, but she's afraid to know them, afraid to think them, because it's always different when it's someone else in that hospital bed, _anyone_ but her wife, the love of her life.

On Rachel's nightstand, there are only two pictures.  One of them is of Quinn holding Haley, in her toothless, baby days.  She had been seventeen and she had a daughter and a girlfriend, somehow, and her life had seemed perfect, and the look on her younger, smiling face reflected that.  The second picture was from just last year, a picture of the entire family, with Haley holding a squirming Alex and Rachel with her arm wrapped around her daughter and Quinn with her hand in Rachel's leftover one, smiling down at her family.  Her life had seemed pretty perfect then, too.  

On the mantle over their fireplace was their life, from Rachel's first Tony, to Quinn's medical grants, to their wedding certificate.  The newest addition had been Rachel's Golden Globe, for a role in a movie that she had managed to gather huge admirers for.  She had all the others - Emmy, Grammy, and Tony - all that was left was the Oscar.  They had already got the invitation in the mail.  And Rachel had been ecstatic, jumping around the apartment and squealing while Quinn had stood in the center of their living room, staring down at the little gold card inviting Mrs. Rachel Berry and a guest to the Kodak Theater of Los Angeles for the Oscar ceremonies.  And now...the ceremony was in a month and a half, and now, maybe Rachel would finally achieve her lifelong dream, from a hospital bed, or worse.

Quinn sits on the queen-sized bed and wonders how she's even supposed to sleep.  She and Rachel had broken up once in the entirety of their relationship, for a terrible, terrible week in the middle of their sophomore year of college, for some stupid-ass reason that neither of them remembered by the time they made up.  It wasn't an obligatory thing - it wasn't about the responsibilities they had to Haley, they _loved_ each other and couldn't stand to be away from each other.  Quinn was only thirty-two, she didn't have hardly any wrinkles, and suddenly, this was happening to her.

She slips her shoes off and tucks herself under the covers, automatically rolling towards Rachel's side of the bed, where she'd usually set her head on the smaller woman's shoulder, if she was really just interested in sleep that night.  Except, there's nothing there, and all Quinn gets is her face crashing into the bed, smelling so much of Rachel that Quinn doesn't move away, just breathes it in.    
  
With the smell of her wife all around her, she finally manages to fall asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quinn's life is changing once again.

When Quinn wakes up the next morning, Haley is curled up next to her in bed, with Alex in between them.  Normally, Quinn would be upset about that - it wasn't really all that safe to go to sleep with a small child in your bed - but at the moment, she didn't care all that much.  Haley had her hand splayed out over Alex's stomach and her face buried into Rachel's pillow, a habit Quinn herself had.  Her blonde hair (and what a miracle that hair had been, especially after Rachel insisting that the baby would look like Puck as much as it would look like Quinn all those years ago) was splayed out all around her.  Alex had his small fingers curled into Quinn's own hair (which explained the stinging pain on her head in her dream), and his head was tucked toward her.

Quinn couldn't help but think that Rachel would've loved such a moment.

Her bedroom door opens quietly, and she rolls over to look as Santana Lopez stands in the doorway, staring at her with a strange, muted look on her face.  She waves a little, and Quinn waves back, reaching for her son and smiling down at him when he squirms but settles into her arms with a sigh while Haley shifts in her sleep.  Carrying him past Santana, she is greeted by a cooing Brittany, her fathers-in-law engaged in a quiet battle with Haley and Sam in Monopoly, and Noah Puckerman, leaning against the back of her couch.

The whole history of her life spans the room, from the small boy in her arms to the man she met when she was Alex's age, and all she wants is for her wife to be here, with her, living it with her.  

Brittany takes Alex from Quinn, smiling softly down at the boy, who's starting to blink awake at all the movement, and she greets Quinn with a half hug and a whispered, "Hey," before she moves backwards, bouncing the boy up and down and whispering things to him.  Santana closes the bedroom door behind her and grips Quinn's shoulder, her face betraying sadness.  She only nods before she follows her own wife to play with a gurgling Alex.  Puck moves over to her quickly, and Quinn throws herself into his arms with ferocity.

Her relationship with Puck had endured plenty of changes, but he had grown into one of her best friends and a wonderful father to Haley, and Alex's too.  He had been one of her greatest allies, her entire life, and it felt good to have him here, with Santana and Brittany, and Haley and Sam, and Aaron and Michael.

In the end, though, she couldn't help but think she'd give them all up to have Rachel awake and smiling.

-

Quinn gets the call from the NYU medical center about transferring to the Neurological Institute of New York to the neuro-ICU.  She says yes before they can even explain the benefits, because she already knows what they are.

She already knows what this is, and what this can do.  And she already feels like Rachel is slipping away.

-

Brittany can't spend more than five minutes in the hospital room without crying, and Santana can't stand to be in the ICU room with the constant beeping of machines and medicine distributing itself without Brittany there.  Michael is stoic, staring down at his daughter before excusing himself to go get a snack from the vending machine.  Aaron barely makes it past the doors to the ICU before he turns back, his face pale and his hands shaking.  Sam, Haley's wife, sits with Aaron and plays a game of chess on her iPhone with him.  Her daughter is at school.   Puck is in the apartment, waiting around for his daughter so they can make their way over to the hospital together.  The only person who can stand to be in the hospital room, besides herself and Alex (and that's hardly much of an accomplishment, as he's completely asleep) is Haley.

Her cousin was now a producer on Broadway, with a successful show running its way to the Tony awards.  Their relationship had changed so much, in the years since Quinn had invited her to she and Rachel's wedding on a whim, almost, and they were closer than ever.  They were both outcasts from their family, for the same reason, and they were both married and successful and  _happy._ Or, well, Quinn had been happy.  Now it seems as though she's stuck in this inky blackness.

It's only been a few days - but for some reason it feels like years.

"Did you see the reporters?" Haley whispers, glancing out the small window overlooking the street, her voice quiet and yet entirely too loud in the room.  Quinn only nods, looking down at her son and feeling the way his small fingers clench around her index finger in his sleep.  There had been a small, merry band of photographers and reporters badgering her about Rachel's condition when she had walked in, her hand wrapped in Michael's.  It was probably a miracle Santana hadn't punched any of them, and if Puck had been there, someone would've been knocked out and Quinn would've probably had to fight off a law suit too, not that Sam or Santana couldn't win it for her.  

Haley moves away from the window, her eyes sliding over the room before they land on the charts at the end of the bed, and she slides her fingers over the top of the clipboard before she locks her eyes on Quinn and Alex.

"He looks so much like her," she whispers, and Alex stirs a little, as if her can hear his godmother's voice and knows she's talking about him.  "It's amazing."

Quinn only nods again, watching Rachel's hand give a minor twitch on the bed before it still once more - an eternal sleep settled over her as she breathes in and out.  She looks so normal, laying there, like she does on Sunday mornings and she doesn't get up until eleven, claiming it's her day off and that she can sleep through as much of it as she wants.  She's so peaceful.

Alex stirs even more, his hand unclasping around Quinn's finger and swinging them both above his head as he stretches a little, his eyes blinking open and catching onto her with a happy, toothy smile, and he reaches for her hair once again.  Ever since the boy had been born, his habit had been grabbing her hair - he didn't have the habit of doing it to his sister, who had the same hair and everything - he had only done it to Quinn.  He gives a small tug at it, before he gives a quiet yawn and moves his head to look around the room.

Haley moves over quickly and offers to take him, and Quinn hands him over willingly, smiling down at the boy and pulling her hair loose from his grip.  

"Is it okay if I take him and sit with the rest of them?  Puck and Haley should be getting here soon," she says, and Quinn only nods again, because Rachel's hand twitches once more over Haley's shoulder.

But then Alex and Haley leave, and all is silent in the room once again.

-

Puck and Haley (the younger) arrive thirty minutes later, and Puck immediately steps to lean against the wall next to Quinn as Haley stands in the space between her mother and her mom and dad, looking down at the bed.  Quinn can't see her face, but her head is rapidly moving, looking around the room with interest, probably a morbid sort of it.  She finally points to a machine and asks, "What is that?"

She's pointed to the EEG monitor, hooked up to the electrode pads on Rachel's forehead, and Quinn automatically starts listing off what it is in her head, what the best model is, how it works, and how it measures the physics of the brain before she settles on a simple version of the story even though she knows her daughter could handle the long one.

"It measures brain waves...basically.  Um, if you talk to her, she might be able to hear you, and her brain might act up a little, so the number will go higher.  Her numbers should be pretty low, because she's in a...coma.  It's deeper than normal sleep or even induced sleep," she says, and Haley nods along, her fingers tracing along the edge of the bed absently.  

"How bad is it, really?" Haley asks, without turning around to look at Puck or Quinn, her voice quiet but loud, strong but shaky.  She's sixteen years old and at her mother's bedside, and she's every bit the child Quinn wanted her to be, beautiful and loving and strong and honest and  _every good part_ of Rachel, and Quinn never wanted this to happen to her, never wanted her to know what this feeling was like.  

But what can she do?

"It's a coma," Quinn whispers, afraid to upset the fragile balance that permeates the air of the hospital room.  "Her motor functions aren't diminished, her brain waves appear to be good...she's just...not awake.  It's a coma."

"Research says comas are fifty fifty chance," Haley says, and Quinn almost gives a snort, because if there's one thing Haley's picked up from Rachel, it's her dedication to thorough research.  

But she can't even smile, because her daughter is staring down at her wife, who is in a coma, in a hospital bed.

"It's a coma," Quinn repeats once more, and she's grateful for Puck's arm coming up to rest around her shoulders and pulling her into his side as they watch their daughter watch her mother breathe in and out and in and out and do nothing more.

-

When they get home with multiple boxes of pizza, Brittany plays with Alex while Haley and Santana swordfight on the Wii, and Michael and Aaron sit on either side of Quinn and cheer their granddaughter on, earning glares from Santana who claims they're being unsupportive of her in her time of need.  Puck has already crashed in the guest room, claiming a headache, but Quinn suspects he's talking to his girlfriend of almost two years who he left behind to come visit.

This is the family she's always wanted, and she's had it for so many years now, after her parents disowning her (twice, in a way).  

It only figures that it would finally be put in danger.

-

Santana is the one who comes with her for a walk down the street to the park.  She and Brittany had gotten married in their sophomore year of college, a sort of blink-and-you-miss-it event that everyone anticipated anyway, once Santana got her stuff together and came to the terms with the fact that she was as gay as a rainbow and didn't much enjoy being with anyone besides Brittany.  Brittany had been happy to go along.  They didn't have kids - a product of Santana's dedication to her job and her dedication to Brittany being successful as a dancer, but they treated Alex and Haley as if they were their own.

They finally stop walking and sit down on a bench, watching runners jog around as the last dregs of sunlight filter in through the trees, and finally Santana speaks.

"Go ahead and say whatever you need to say, before you lose your shit in front of your kids and all the other people."

Quinn looks over at Santana, who's staring straight at her with a familiar exacting look in her eye, cutting right through Quinn with practiced ease.  Law school took Santana's usual bitchy dynamic and had shifted it straight into a scary, scary thing.  And so Quinn opened her mouth to speak - only to find a choked noise being produced before she has to look away, up at the trees, and down at the sidewalk, and towards an oncoming jogger, her head moving too fast too fast while she feels hot tears start to streak her face.

She curls in on herself, feeling her hands shake, and everything just starts moving in her brain again.

"I don't know what's happening, I don't know why this is happening," she whispers, squeaks, slightly amazed that this is even getting out past the huge knot lodged in her throat.  "I love her more than anything else, I'd give anything to wake her up, to keep her, to stop her from climbing the set, I want her  _here._ I  _need her,_ " she groans, squeezing and twisting her own hands up into a ball and digging nails into her palm.  "I can't raise Alex without her, I can't send Haley to college without her, I can barely  _breathe."_

Quinn feels Santana's hand drop on her shoulder, heavy and warm, but it's not what Quinn wants, not what she  _needs._

"I don't know if she'll get better," Quinn whispers, haltingly, feeling her palms slide against each other as the fingers on her right hand grip onto the ring on her left, feeling out the familiar shape and the smoothness of the gold.  "I don't know if she'll wake up."

Santana's hand squeezes, and Quinn's head drops lower, her eyes focused now on her shoes, and she watches as her tears haze her vision and then clear as they drop to splash on her shoes.

"I  _need_ her here."

Santana clears her throat and gives a gruff, "I know."

Quinn's shoulders wrack with suppressed sobs as she whimpers, her head hanging and her hands gripping each other, pressed in against her stomach as she's bent over, Santana's hand still resting on her shoulder.  She doesn't know how long she just sits there and cries, wishing for all the world that her phone might ring with news of Rachel waking up, smiling, and singing, and  _there,_ there for Quinn, like she swore she would be ever since they were sophomores in love with a kid to raise.

When she finally lifts her head, Santana is still staring straight at her, but her eyes are red, and thanks to the last moments of the setting sun, the tear tracks on her face are well-illuminated.  She gives a small smile, and Quinn crashes into her waiting arms without a thought.

The sun sets, and they walk home in silence.

-

The next day is Saturday and she and Haley spend most of the day inside the hospital room, watching nurses and doctors walk in and out and spare glances at them.  They eat lunch with the rest of the family and then return to the silence of the room, just watching Rachel breathe and twitch occasionally.

Quinn comes back from a trip to the bathroom to find Haley standing at Rachel's bedside, her hand outstretched, hovering over Rachel's shoulder but not touching.  Her head is turned enough that Quinn can see her mouth opening and closing, and can see the way Haley's hand shakes in the sunlight coming in through the window.  Quinn starts to step further into the room, knocking lightly at the sliding glass door that's permanently pulled open, and Haley jumps as if she's been shot and turns wide, hazel eyes on her mother standing in the doorway.  Her hand retracts to rest against her collarbone, grabbing at the prominent bone and clutching there.

Quinn barely realizes Haley's eyes are clouded over with tears before the girl is brushing past her, muttering something in a croaky voice about going to the bathroom before sprinting for the neuro-ICU doors.  Quinn is hot on her heels, sparing a quick glance at her unmoving wife before she goes after the girl, tracking a sharp left turn towards the bathrooms, and crashing into the door right before Haley can get it fully closed and locked.  She steps in quickly and closes the door with her back, reaching behind herself to slide the lock into place while Haley stares at her shoes.

"Haley..." Quinn starts, then stops as Haley's head lifts to lock her eyes onto Quinn, the clench of her jaw reminding Quinn of Puck as a younger man, and with the way her body is set in Rachel's signature angry pose, Quinn is momentarily stunned into silence.  She's never seen her daughter look this angry, not even when she lost her favorite toy or when she and her ex-boyfriend broke up after he met Quinn and Rachel.  The red quality of her eyes makes the hazel stand out almost beautifully, tragically, and her fists are clenched in tight balls.

"Why can't I just go to the bathroom in peace?  I'm  _okay,"_  she almost growls, her eyes wide and focused tightly on Quinn.  Quinn, for her part, only shakes her head and tries to start again.

"Honey - "

" _Stop,"_ she growls again, one of her hands raising to unclench and then clutch once more at her collarbone, her fingers gripping and releasing at her upper chest.  "Just  _stop,_ I'm  _okay."_

"Haley."

Haley freezes, her eyes meeting Quinn's and squeezing shut at the sincerity Quinn is trying to project before she spins away, crashing into the wall with a loud thump, and leaning her head against the tiles, breathing hard as she starts to cry in earnest, her hand still right over her heart, rubbing and clutching.

"Why are you doing that?" Quinn asks, moving closer, her eyes locked on the odd movement, and all Haley does is shake her head, groaning and crying.  

"I can't  _breathe,_ " she whimpers, her voice cracking as she turns around again, crossing to the opposite wall and away from Quinn.  Quinn feels her own heart clench in pure sympathy and for a moment her whole head and chest floods with a constant instinct of protection that tells her to go kill whatever is making her daughter feel like this.

"Baby..." she starts, only to get cut off once more by Haley.

"You said I could talk to her," she croaks, shaking her head against the wall she's rested her head against.  "You said she might be able to hear me, that I could talk to her."

Quinn nods, sliding closer once more to her daughter, who thankfully doesn't move away this time, just stares down at the ground with her forehead resting against the wall.  The silhouette effect provides Quinn a look at Haley's reddening face, at the pure symptoms of being distraught all up and down her features, in her posture and on her face.  She steps closer, her shoulder sliding on the same wall Haley is resting against.

"I couldn't even touch her," Haley whispers, barely within Quinn's hearing range.  "I can't even touch her, let alone speak," she says, louder this time, and she finally looks up at her mother.  "She's my  _momma,_ and I can't even  _touch_ her.  She's my  _momma."_

Quinn feels her heart splinter even further as the sound in the small bathroom is punctuated by her own tears, by Haley's tears and the scratching sound of Haley's fingers pulling at the fabric of her t-shirt.

"It doesn't seem like it's getting better," Haley finally says, her eyes dropping down to the floor, and she starts sliding down the wall and crumples to the ground, curling in a ball and setting her head on her knees, one arm wrapped around her legs and the other still tucked against her chest.  Quinn sinks down to her knees next to her, and wraps the girl, her daughter, she and Rachel's daughter, up into her arms, and cries into the similar blonde hair cascading down from her head, trying to breathe.

She thinks back to her wife in the hospital bed, and she prays to God that she'll wake up soon.

In the mean time, she whispers for Haley to  _breathe,_ and Quinn tries to do the same.


	3. Please Don't Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haley Rachel Berry-Fabray has lived her whole life with her mother's at her side.

Haley Rachel Fabray-Berry was born as Haley Rachel Fabray. Puckerman hadn't been added - it wasn't a slight to her father in any way. The first person she ever saw was supposedly her doctor. And the second was her momma, Rachel Berry.

From what her momma had told her over the years, in a deeply sentimental tone that most of the time had made Haley want to squirm uncomfortably, Rachel had loved her instantly, loved her from the dirty blonde hair on the top of her head to the hazel eyes that she had inherited from her parents' matching set to the tips of her toes. She hadn't been Rachel's daughter then, and Rachel hadn't been momma at that point. Just Rachel.

But Haley remembers some things about her life. She remembers being three and having momma pick her up and bounce her in her arms with a bright shining smile that never faded. She remembers home videos converted from VHS to DVD to Blu-ray to Platinum Disc by her grandfathers of Rachel rolling around on the floor with Haley and Haley's mom, Quinn giggling in the background.

All Haley Fabray has ever known - every moment of her life she has lived - she has lived it with _both_ of her mothers at her side.

-

The first time she ever saw her momma cry was when she was five. She had just been sitting in her room, playing around with some toys as she vaguely heard shouting that gave her in an uneasy feeling right in the center of her chest - it hurt a little, and so she got up to go tell her mom, who always seemed to know what to do when she hurt - but when she tugged open her door, she was greeted with the sight of momma sitting on the couch and mom slamming the door shut with a loud noise that hurt Haley's ears.

Her chest hurt just a little more and so she rubbed at it with her painted nails, trudging forward and stopping at the end of the couch, observing the room around her. She wasn't afraid to be without her mom - momma always took good care of her when mom was gone, and let her have ants on a log with extra ants - but her chest _hurt_ and looking at the two funny shaped glasses on the table filled with something red to the open folder full of papers and the stack of books next to it to her momma, who was slouched over and her shoulders were shaking only made it hurt more.

So she rubbed at her chest more and stepped closer, reaching out to punch her tiny little fist lightly into momma's knee. Momma's head shot up and she looked at Haley with shiny brown eyes, before she smiled as widely as she could and held out her hand for Haley to take. Haley let herself be pulled closer to her momma, and smiled up at her when she was wrapped in her momma's arms, standing directly between her knees.

"Hi baby," her momma whispered, settling her head against Haley's and running her bigger hands over Haley's shoulders and down her arms and back up again. "Are you okay?" she asked, and Haley nodded, reaching up her hand to grab one of momma's - the one with no rings on it.

"Which one is this?" she asks, pulling it down so it rests in her small hands between them. She slides her fingers all up and around the big hand, from the short but shiny nails to the bracelet wrapped around her momma's wrist. At kindergarten, they had just started learning rights and lefts - she was okay with herself, but on other people she always had to ask.

"Left," her momma whispered, and Haley watched quietly as wet little droplets - like rain, but tears instead - hit their twisted up hands.

"Momma," she whispered back, wrapping her fist around her momma's thumb and squeezing, feeling the little pounding thing right on the pad of it. Her mom called it a heartbeat.

"Yes, Haley?"

"It'll be okay," she whispers, keeping her mom's thumb in her hand but bringing her other one up so she can feel for her own heartbeat on her other thumb. She tried to figure out if they were synced up - beating at the same time. But she wasn't so distracted that she didn't hear her momma give a loud sniffle. "Aunt Brittany always says it'll be okay, even if it isn't. So don't cry."

She finally determined that their heartbeats were thumping along at the same beat when she felt her momma pull back and press a kiss to her forehead before momma's arm pulled her closer, crushing their hands between them as Haley's head landed on Momma's chest. She could hear the heartbeat _thump thump thumping_ along.

She pressed down harder on her own thumb - and _yep_ , they definitely matched.

-

The first time she sees her mom cry is a week later, exactly. They're in a hotel room, where mom has been staying for the past few days - which is weird and strange for Haley because when she has a bad dream she likes to crawl into her moms' bed and snuggle up between them, with her head on mom's shoulder and momma's soothing hand running up and down her back, and last night she had only been met with momma. Haley comes out of the bathroom, which she can proudly say she has been using for almost two years now, and her mom is sitting in the chair at the desk, rubbing her forehead and crying.

She doesn't seem to notice Haley walking out or the flush of the toilet - she only bounces the cell phone in her hand on the table in front of her, spinning it around in her white fingers, rubbing her head with the other. So Haley bounces up to the lone bed in the hotel room - she's sleeping here tonight, and so she's wearing her duckie pajamas - and climbs on, crawling to the side that's next to the desk.

She tucks her legs up under her and she sits, watching her mom totally entranced with her phone, spinning it around and sliding through photos and pictures on it and just - _crying_. She finally realizes her mom isn't going to notice her and so she knocks on the solid metal of the desk and pulls herself up so that her arms are leaning on the desk and her legs are on the bed. She can see the pictures her mom is looking at - they're all of momma, or of Haley. But mostly momma - and Haley's chest hurts again.

Her mom drops her phone quickly, spinning the chair and looking at Haley, who pushes backwards and sits on her heels, cowed at the look in her mom's eyes. She's not angry - Haley knows angry and her mom isn't angry - but her eyes are red and her face looks tighter and sharper. Haley watches her mom's hand dart out and grab the phone again, pulling it to her body, and then she looks back to Haley in silence.

"You should call momma," Haley whispers, and she knows it was the right thing to say when her mom sits up a little and starts fiddling with the phone again, rubbing her fingers over the surface.

"Why?" her mom asks, then looks up at Haley with a strange look before she looks away again. "You don't - you don't have to answer that, baby. I don't think you can answer."

"She's sad," Haley says, disregarding her mother's words because talking about momma doesn't make mom seem so sad, in some way. "You make her happy. And you're sad. And she makes you happy."

Her mom just blinks at her, her fingers pausing on the surface of the phone, before her fingers set her phone on the desk and splay out into the air along with her arms, and Haley scrambles forward into her mom's lap, thumping her head against her heartbeat, and she listens as her mom picks up the phone again and breathes once, twice, three times and then picks out momma's picture and presses the green phone button.

She listens to her mom cry and whimper, "I love you too," over and over, rubbing her small hands over her mom's one and feels the steady t _hump thump thump_.

And she realizes that all their heartbeats must match, because Haley's matches mom's too.

-

When she is eight, a boy pushes her down on the playground and calls her a strange name that she's never heard before. Dyke, is what he yells, and although she get the feeling that not many of the other kids understand it, they yell with him and laugh meanly down at her.

She stands up, brushing gravel off her argyle patterned sweater, and rubs at her now sore knee through the rough denim of her jeans, and she straightens with a silent and strong air that momma wears on stage, or when mom comes home from work and stares down at the kitchen table and quietly whispers to momma that she lost one today.

The boy silences quickly as Haley stares at him, with no mean glint in her eye.

"What," she asks, as everyone falls silent, "does that mean?"

Haley cocks her head to the side as the boy splutters, before he points once more at her. "That's what my daddy says your moms are!"

Haley frowns unhappily.

"But what does it mean?" she asks, staring him down. By now, everyone else has dissipated, sprinting off towards the swings with velocity and yelling for dibs. It's only her and the boy. She thinks he might be in her grade - he looks her size. HIs hair is wild and sticks up all over the place, not short enough that it's regular and buzzed, like her daddy's, but not long enough that it can be styled, like her Uncle Finn's. HIs shoes are black - but they light up when he stomps his foot and draws Haley's eyes back to her face.

"I don't know," he says, staring back at her with bright green eyes. They look like the color of the grass. "I don't know," he repeats, scuffing his light-up shoes along the gravel.

"Okay," Haley says, a rush of affection coming through her for the boy; he was obviously upset and her momma had taught her to be nice to people who were upset. "What's your name?"

The boy glances up from the ground, his eyes locking onto her before he slowly smiles.

"Teddy."

-

Her momma wins a Tony when Haley is ten. Teddy buzzes around the apartment with excitement as his step-dad watches in amusement, and Haley shushes both of them as the winner is announced on the large screen that takes up a large chunk of wall in the Berry-Fabray living room. She watches as the announcer's lips move to form the name Rachel Berry into the microphone, and then she watches as her mother reacts in her own little box, as momma turns to mom and swarms her, pressing a heavy and too-long kiss to her lips before she's speed-walking up to the stage and taking a small spinny disk award from the presenter.

It's a Tony, Haley knows (because she's ten, and she's smart) and momma has a few other awards up on the mantle in her moms' bedroom that are small and shiny or clear. Haley got to hold the last award, one that she didn't get to see presented - a Drama Desk award. Teddy bounces down into the seat next to her and thumps her on the back, laughing in some sort of congratulations as momma opens her mouth to speak.

"This award has been my dream since I was barely old enough to speak," she starts, pausing as the enormous crowd in the theater lets out a low laugh. "And I'm so happy to achieve it on this show that I'm so proud of and with this character, who is such a joy to make new every night."

Her momma looks down at the spinny little medallion on the award and shifts the way she's holding it, taking a deep breath and looking back up to face the crowd, her eyes shiny and darker in color.

"I wouldn't have made it onto this stage without my dads - MIchael and Aaron, who let me be whoever I wanted to be and taught me how to live in this world with kindness and generosity and honesty. My friends from back home who are now all over the place - Brittany, Santana, Finn, Noah, everyone - you made receiving ice cold beverages in the face so much better after I found you."

The crowd laughs a little again, and Teddy nudges Haley and whispers, "She looks really pretty," and Haley feels a surge of pride for her momma and affection for Teddy.

"But...ah," momma starts again, her voice cracking along the words before she shifts into the voice she uses whenever she's crying, and Haley watches in silence as a few tears track down her momma's face. "I don't think I could've ever made it on this stage without the love of my life, Quinn, who deserves every praise for putting up with my crazy for ten years now."

The camera shifts out to the audience and focuses in on mom, saving a split screen for momma so Haley can see both of them at once. Momma's eyes are trained in on mom and vice versa - both of them are crying.

"You are the best thing that's ever happened to me and ever will - I don't know where or who I would be if we hadn't fallen in love. But I know I wouldn't be as happy as you've made me."

Momma draws a shaking breath and glances once more down at the award in her hand, before she looks up directly at the camera, and mom's split screen drops away as she reaches up to wipe at the tears on her face.

"Finally...Haley, baby, I love you so much, and this award is yours - but it's bed time. Go to sleep."

Haley smiles happily, as Teddy nudges her again, exclaiming that her name's just been said on TV, but all she can hear is the ringing noise of the crowd clapping excitedly for her momma in her ears.

-

Alex is born when she is 15, a month after her own birthday. He's tiny, so tiny, and she shuffles around in the waiting around as Teddy plays a game of poker with Uncle Finn and Daddy, and Aunt Brittany and Aunt Santana keep trying to trip her as she walks in front of them. It's annoying, but it's distracting her from thinking about how long she's been stuck here. Haley and Sam are sprawled out into two chairs, talking quietly. Her grandpas are standing at the vending machine in the room, debating over what to get, when her mom comes rushing in, her hair mussed and dressed in a blue gown with gloves and her glasses perched on her nose.

There's no baby in her arms, and Haley feels all the air leave her lungs at the myriad of things that could mean before her mom smiles widely, her eyes shining, gesturing at Haley without words, waving her out into the hallway and down to her momma's room.

There's a doctor standing at momma's bedside, and perched in momma's arms is her baby brother, whose eyes are dark brown and whose hair is sprouting in tufts up from his somewhat misshapen head (Haley had expected that, but it was still rather jarring). Haley stops at the foot of the bed, her eyes completely stuck on the little body that mom was lifting gently from momma's arms and moving towards her with.

She accepts the boy's weight in her arms with a careful tensing of her body, unnaturally terrified of some freak accident causing her to drop him. He blinks up at her before yawning, his little mouth stretching as wide as it can go, and Haley can't help but smile, because god he's so cute. He's adorable, and he's her brother and she already feels this deep need to protect him and beat up anyone who comes near him.

She looks up from her brother after he snuggles closer to her, his head turning to the side and pressing further into the arm supporting him, and she catches a quick moment between her mothers.

They aren't looking at her, but they aren't talking to each other either - just sort of staring into each other's eyes and smiling and while Haley might consider that creepy on a bad day, her heart is already too vulnerable thanks to the boy in her arms and she feels it burst at the sight.

Momma is leaned all the way back in her bed, her hair curling on her forehead while mom leans over her, one hand on her leg and the other in her hair, and they're just smiling, like they're the only people in the room who matter. It's utterly beautiful and Haley has a momentary snapshot of what she wants her life to be - so filled with love that losing the other person would utterly destroy her.

Before she can continue in that vein of depressing thought, the doctor asks them what to name the boy, and Haley blurts out Alex before she can stop herself. Momma and mom look at her with shining eyes before mom nods at the doctor and repeats the name, her fingers tangled in momma's.

"Alexander Berry-Fabray."

-

Teddy shows up at the hospital her momma is in a week after she gets moved to the Columbia neuro center. He had been on a trip out west for most of the time and his arrival is punctuated by a loud crash outside the waiting room before he stumbles into the room, panting, and with a scratch all down his arm. His hair is still as wild as ever and his eyes are bright as he searches the room before he spots her.

He literally vaults over an empty couch and nearly falls over, straight onto her, but she shoots up before he can and throws herself at him, knocking his momentum backwards so that they balance out. Alex is sitting in daddy's lap and squeals at Teddy's appearance, clapping his hands together with wide movements. But all she can hear is Teddy whispering in her ear.

"It'll be okay," he whispers, turning his head into her temple, wrapping her up in his long, warm arms. "It'll be okay, Hales."

And Haley sinks into him in cries, because she remembers the look on her mom's face just five minutes ago - gaunt and lonely. So lonely, and she hopes to any God that will listen that he's right, if not for her, than for mom.

-

Momma wakes up and stays awake for the first time a month after her accident. She's been going in and out of consciousness for a week now, waking up for a few seconds or minutes and smiling at whoever's in the room with a grimace. The doctors had said that this was a sign - that her brain was putting itself back together and getting its feet up under it. They mentioned that she might not be...all there, that they might have to deal with memory or function problems.

Haley was in the room, sitting on the windowsill and looking down at the courtyard that extended out from the cafeteria. Most of the family had gone down to get some food, and she can sort of see Teddy flying Alex through the air like an airplane while daddy took a picture.

Mom is standing next to her, staring straight ahead at momma's brain wave monitor, her fingers bouncing up and down on the windowsill somewhat nervously. Her fingers are pale and thin - Haley noticed yesterday that mom had to keep shifting her wedding ring further down onto her finger to get it to stay on.

Despite all the encouraging moments over the past week, Haley feels like she's watching her mom die right in front of her, and it hurts. It hurts more than the endless hours of watching momma sleep in that hospital bed - it hurts more than Alex's now nearly nightly crying. It's the most painful thing she's ever experienced. She's known since she was a baby how utterly entwined her mothers were - Haley's never had to live with one and not the other.

As much as she doesn't know what that'd be like, as scary as the thought is, she doesn't quite believe mom could really live without momma.

And that's the scariest thing she's ever known. It would be terrible to have her momma die, it would be painful and she would probably spend a lot of time locked in her room listening to depressing music and she wouldn't understand why she couldn't wake up to the sound of her momma singing. It would be wrong, to not have her momma. But it would be so much worse having to see her mom try and live without her.

Because she would - Haley knows her mothers, and neither of them would abandon Haley and Alex and their family. Her mom would stay and fight and she would be there. But Haley knows that however badly she would feel without her momma, her mom would feel ten billion times worse.

And that would be so entirely depressing to see in her mother that Haley can't even begin to contemplate it.

She's drawn out of her rambling and dark thoughts by a strange noise coming from the bed - it sounds like air being pushed out of something. Her mom is still staring down at the brain wave monitor, which is spiking high under her watchful gaze. Haley gets the feeling that she's not really watching it, just staring.

Haley looks over at the bed and nearly falls off the windowsill - her momma's mouth is moving, looking straight over at them. In her haste to move, Haley barely has time to hit her mom on the arm before she lunges over to the bed, leaning over her momma and feeling tears coming to her eyes because momma is looking back and smiling, her whole body thrumming into life that Haley can see, see because she's so used to watching it not move at all. Mom crashes into her side, her pale hands grasping the metal siding of the bed and Haley steps back as she watches her mothers stare at each other, before momma's hand shifts, just barely, grabbing mom's hand and squeezing.

And Haley can't help but cry and smile as her mom bursts into tears, hot and fast, as she leans down to kiss momma's forehead, calling for a doctor.

-

The doctor says it's a miracle. Two weeks later and her momma bounces out of bed and downstairs, carrying Alex with her and she's singing.

The only things off are strange little pockets in memory - sometimes momma can't for the life of her remember words and gets invariably upset when no one has a thesaurus to look it up in - and she sometimes gets little shakes. Her head hurts a lot, but the doctor thinks that's because of something having to do with diet.

But she's _singing_ , when Haley comes downstairs and she smiles happily at Alex as he eats the food given to him with his usual lack of skill and finesse.

But the best moment is when mom comes downstairs and sits next to Haley at their kitchen island. Her hands are still pale, but her wedding ring fits a little better and her face doesn't look so afraid or alone. She sits down heavily, her fingers wrapping around the mug of coffee slid across the island to her, but she doesn't look down at the swirling black liquid.

Haley watches her mom as she stares steadily at her wife, her love, her life, and Haley's mother. Her hazel eyes are intense and focused, but the smile on her face is so wide that Haley can't help but smile too. It takes a bit for her momma to recognize mom's staring.

"Quinn, baby," her momma whispers, setting down the jar of food she was about to feed to Alex and sliding around his high-chair and stepping between mom's knees. Her hands reach up and grab either side of mom's head and Haley watches as momma kisses mom lightly. "Stop staring."

Haley starts laughing at mom's affronted look and momma's mischievous expression, and Alex joins in, flipping his plastic animal toy into the air with a yell.

And it's perfection as mom leans forward to kiss momma with all the love she has.

-

"Okay, so you want _Love Story_? Like, the song. Like, Taylor Swift?" Teddy asks, bouncing his knee up and down and staring Haley down with his eyebrow raised. They're at a small ice cream shop downtown, and Haley nods as she shuffles through some of the papers spread out across the table, glaring at him for his distrust.

"It's a great song!"

"It's like, not even important. You do realize that you're planning a wedding? You have one of the greatest singers in the history of planet earth at your disposal and you're picking some rearranged version of _Love Story_ as your first dance?"

"Yes."

"My mom will not be happy about this."

"Your mother hates me, Teddy. I really don't think I should have to bow down to her on _our_ wedding day. And plus, you like this song. And it actually means something!"

Teddy looks chastised as he scoops up a large amount of ice cream with his spoon and offers some to Haley, who takes the bite happily before she looks back down at the song list.

"I'm just saying...like, why? I don't have a problem with the song, I guess, even if it is super corny and Romeo and Juliet die in the end...but why Taylor Swift? Aren't their like, bigger better fish to fry?"

"No one says that any more," Haley says, shoving all of the papers into a pile and then fitting them into her messenger bag, before she reaches over and grabs her spoon and dips it into Teddy's ice cream cup. "How about because I love you? Doesn't that count?"

"If you really loved me you would let me buy that limited edition - "

"No, Teddy. Just no."

"Fine. I want _Love Story_ because life is all about love stories. But I've seen the greatest love story play out right in front of me and I want to honor that I'm the product of a love story and now I'm making my own - "

Haley is cut off by Teddy jamming his spoonful of ice cream into her mouth.

"Honey, you really are your mother's daughter. I get it. You're a love story."

Haley frowns at her fiance, grabbing the spoon in her mouth and swallowing the ice cream before she speaks.

"Plus, momma's been itching to sing it. She's having some sort of mental breakdown about us getting married, and I have a bet with mom that she'll cry. Mom seems to think that she'll keep her professionalism through the song."

"Easiest bet ever. She'll cave seven notes in!"

"I know. So, _Love Story_?"

Teddy pauses, fishing around in his ice cream cup before he raises his eyes to Haley's.

"Do you remember when Alex was born and you told me that you wanted to fall in love like your parents?" he asks, dropping his spoon and leaning back, surveying her with a small smile.

Haley nods slowly, reaching forward and sliding his ice cream over to her, unsure what his point is.

"I just want you to know that I would move heaven and earth to get you to wake up, if you ever fell off a set and went into a coma. Just so you know. If it ever comes up," he says, his voice uncharacteristically deep as he considers the table. Haley's mouth goes a little dry.

"I love you too," she says quietly, willing his eyes to meet hers. She smiles at him, and she watches as his own gorgeous smile spreads across his face.

"Come on, let's go home," he says, standing up and stretching, before grabbing the messenger bag and offering his hand down to her. Haley grabs it and smiles at the shot of warmth that spreads down her whole body and leans into his side as they start walking down the crowded street.

-

Her mom loses the hundred dollar bet when momma's voice cracks on the line, " _begging you please don't go."_

When it happens, Haley glances over at her mom from where her head is resting against Teddy's chest as the music plays on. Quinn makes her way up to the steps after sending a small glare over to Haley, and pulls momma off the stage and into her arms, laughing when the shorter woman flings her arms around her neck and kisses her quite fully on the lips.

Haley smiles, turning her head to look up at Teddy, who smiles happily down at her, his hands on her waist tightening. He leans further down and kisses her, unintentionally mimicking her mothers across the room, before he pulls back a little and clears his throat.

Against her lips, he sings another (admittedly out of place) line, _"it's a love story, baby, just say yes."_


End file.
